Earlier today, the team behind the hugely popular Nintendo Wii and GameCube emulator Dolphin published a new update (Release 2503), introducing a bunch of changes and improvements to enhance the player experience (thanks AndroidAuthority!).
This includes alterations to how cheats are handled when using RetroAchievements' Hardcore mode, the incorporation of a new ability to track your play time across both Wii and GameCube games, and the addition of a visual interface for editing per-game graphics settings (available from the game properties tab).
RetroAchievements, in case you're unaware, is a tool, that is compatible with various emulators, that aims to introduce achievements into retro games that pre-date the existence of platforms like Steam and Xbox Live. Its Hardcore Mode, meanwhile, is an optional challenge available to more skillful players allowing them to "have a one-to-one replication of how [they] used to play retro games", by disabling things like cheats, save states, and speed-altering features.
When Dolphin first incorporated RetroAchievements support back in July 2024, the emulator disabled the use of any cheat codes during Hardcore Mode by default. However, fans soon got in touch, requesting that a change be made to allow limited support for "cheats" that fixed "unfortunate game behaviors" and "quality of life improvements". As a result, Dolphin's developers got in touch with the folks behind RetroAchievements and came up with the concept of an allowlist. This means "select and specific cheat codes" are now able to be used in RetroAchievements' Hardcore Mode — most of which are either widescreen aspect ratio codes or fixes to game freezes and bugs.
In addition to these helpful changes to cheat support, Dolphin's developers have also incorporated a way to track the total amount of hours you've spent playing particular games using the emulator, similar to the feature offered by most modern systems. This is enabled by default and presents the information in a list. It can also be deactivated. This is in addition to adding a new visual interface for editing per-game graphical settings, which doesn't require you to use a text box like before.
You can find the full breakdown of all the changes available in Release 2503 here.